


The Slytherin Champion

by AoifeMoran



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Happy Ending, Triwizard Tournament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 22:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8178607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AoifeMoran/pseuds/AoifeMoran
Summary: In another universe, Cassius Warrington was chosen to be the Hogwarts champion. It made all the difference.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by a tumblr post about a Slytherin champion, but that post was rather darker than this story, if only because I've had enough of all sorts of needlessly depressing stories for the time being.

This is how it starts:

There is a school, founded on division, even though it preaches unity. Since its founding, almost everyone agrees, fully a quarter of the student body is Dark, will be Dark, can only be Dark. It is known.

There is a tournament, promoting unity even though what it really does is divide, and point out the differences, give no chances to work together, only against. It is a tournament for a cutthroat world, every man for himself, and every woman too.

There is a boy. He is the symbol of the triumph of Good over Evil, Light over Dark, Love over Hate.

This is what happens:

I.  
On All Hallows’ Eve in 1994, the Goblet of Fire names three Champions: Viktor Krum, Fleur Delacour, and Cassius Warrington of Slytherin house. The Great Hall is stunned into silence, with very few approving of a Slytherin representing Hogwarts as Champion. The few angry boos that slip out stop just as quickly when the Goblet hisses and crackles and spits out another name: Harry Potter.

Suddenly everything is very clear: Warrington’s used Dark magic to make the Cup choose him, but Harry is so inherently the opposite of everything he stands for that the Cup picked him to counter Warrington. At least, that’s what rumour says, and everyone knows if everyone’s saying it then it must be true.

Slytherin is known for ambition, the desire to be the best, to win. Ravenclaw may know the most, Gryffindor may be bravest, Hufflepuff may try the hardest, but give a Slytherin a goal and not even Death might be a true obstacle. Say what you like about Warrington, but he will settle for nothing short of victory. Harry… won’t.

Hogwarts, for the most part, rallies around Harry, who is uncomfortable with the attention, and the badges which read, “Support Harry Potter: The True Hogwarts Champion!” He remembers the Sorting Hat, which had wanted to Sort him into Slytherin, and swallows his pride and tells people about what it said. “Maybe,” he asks tentatively, “they’re not all awful?”

Hermione, brightest witch of her age that she is, backs him up. “Slytherin hasn’t got a monopoly on evil,” she tells people, and reels off lists of Dark Lords and Ladies and other generally awful people who came from other houses. “And what about Merlin, and all the other good Slytherins?” And she has lists of those too, for those who aren’t satisfied just by hearing that evil comes from all manner of places.

The badges start to disappear.

Harry offers Warrington a wary smile whenever they pass each other in the halls, even though Malfoy seems to have decided it's his life's calling to trail after Warrington whenever he can. Malfoy sneers, and makes insulting comments, until Warrington tells him to grow up. After a month, Warrington even nods his head in greeting.

None of them know it yet, but this is the power the Dark Lord knows not: Harry cannot bring himself to hate without cause, and the people around him follow his lead. It starts slowly, first just his friends, and then it spreads through all of Hogwarts, and trickles out to the rest of the Wizarding World.

II.  
Harry finds out about the dragons from Hagrid, and he tells Warrington, because his sense of fairness allows him no less. “Are you daft, Potter?” Warrington asks him, unable to comprehend Harry’s lack of desire to win the Tournament.

“Look, I’ve already got, er, what was it? Eternal glory, right? And I don’t exactly need the money or something. Hermione reckons this is another attempt by Voldemort to do me in, and she’s usually right about that sort of thing. I’d mostly just like to survive, but it’d be nice to have a Hogwarts victory.” 

Warrington is stunned for a moment, but then he claps a hand on Harry’s back, and gives him a curt nod. “You’re a good man, Potter,” he tells him. “I won’t forget this.” It sounds like a threat, but Harry hears the promise, and offers him a shaky smile.

Fleur tries to enchant the dragon, Viktor attacks it head on, and Harry outflies it, but Warrington gives the audience a show. He conjures winter, turns the arena into a snowy wonderland, and the dragon, cold-blooded creature that it is, drops off to sleep. Then Warrington walks up to the nest, bold as you please, and takes the egg. That alone is enough to tie him for first place, but he earns the dragon keepers' eternal respect when he casts a warming charm on the rest of the eggs. 

Hogwarts is stunned - a Slytherin, doing something so showy and with no Dark magic? And then doing a small kindness on top of it, for no apparent reason? Maybe Potter was right, the whispers say, maybe they really aren’t all bad. Maybe, people start to think, they’re just people, like us... 

Slowly, the amount of suspicious glares in the direction of Slytherin falls. “Snape is still a bastard, though,” a Hufflepuff whispers to her friend in the halls one day, and a passing Slytherin hears them and laughs, and somewhere in Dumbledore’s office, the Sorting Hat smiles, because the inter-house unity it has preached for years is finally starting to happen.

III.  
Warrington tips Harry off about the next clue, and fairly straightforwardly. “The merpeople will take someone you love,” he says, catching Harry in the toilet one day. “How are you going to breathe underwater?”

“How do you know?” Harry asks, although he believes him either way.

“The Slytherin dormitory has windows onto the lake, and the merpeople look particularly smug lately. Also, Glyndwr speaks Mermish.”

Harry has no idea who Glyndwr is, but he thanks Warrington anyways, and when he gets back to the Gryffindor tower, he asks Hermione if she knows how he could learn to breathe underwater in two weeks. Surprisingly, it’s Neville who comes up with the answer - gillyweed - and the Weasley twins who help him acquire it. They have the oddest acquaintances, it turns out, but Harry isn’t complaining, and he sleeps much easier in the days leading up to the task, now that he’s got it all sorted out.

Underneath the lake are Ron, Hermione, a tiny blonde who looks like a miniature Fleur, and a young boy who looks like a less intimidating version of Warrington. Viktor comes for Hermione, half-shark and all, and then Warrington, with a bubble-head charm, for the boy. 

Harry looks at him, points at the blonde, at his watch - time is running out, where’s Fleur? Warrington shrugs, gestures for him to come on already. Harry takes his wand, uses it to write in glowing letters, “Dumbledore wouldn’t leave her here, right?”

“Wouldn’t he?” Warrington writes back, incredibly casual, and swims off with what must be his brother. 

Harry thinks back, to his first year and the obstacle course that didn’t even stop Quirrell, to his second year and Lockhart, and to the year before, when Dumbledore had sent him and Hermione to rescue Sirius Black alone. He feels sick, and decides that if Fleur isn’t coming then he’ll have to save her hostage by himself.

He does. It’s difficult going, but it’s worth it, and it puts him in second place after Warrington, after the judges are done arguing about it. It’s worth it, for the look of pure relief on Fleur’s face when she sees her sister.

Later, after all wounds are seen to, Harry walks up to Warrington and says, “I didn’t know you had a little brother.”

“He’s my cousin,” Warrington says curtly, and Harry flushes, embarrassed, and somewhat jealous. 

“I’d like to meet him,” Harry says. His cousin, he thinks, would never had done for him what Warrington’s just has. “He must be awfully brave to volunteer for a task like this. How old is he?” 

Once again he is treated to Warrington’s shocked expression, though this time it takes him less time to recover, and then he is introduced to Junius Warrington the younger, aged six and a half, who has all of the Harry Potter action figures, including the broom. His older cousin is absolutely mortified. Harry didn’t even know there were action figures.

The Daily Prophet’s photographer is elbowed out of the way by Witch Weekly’s, and girls of all houses aww over the picture of a starstruck Junius being hugged by Harry.

IV.  
The Yule Ball rolls around again, and when Harry asks Cho, she says yes, because Cedric is sweet, but Harry is a Champion, and what girl would pass that up? Harry tries, learns how to dance and practices and even buys her flowers, but even though they are a beautiful couple, him in his green dress robes, her in a golden gown, Harry can’t help but feel like Cho is elsewhere, her attention straying constantly to Cedric, who is dancing with her best friend Marietta and throwing longing glances Cho’s way when he thinks neither girl is looking.

“You should go dance with him,” Harry tells her, bittersweet, and she smiles sadly at him and apologizes for ruining his night, but he waves her off and heads to sit with Ron. 

He is stopped on the way by a dark-haired girl with impossibly pale eyes. Her dress is blue and makes him think of the lake, and she has Slytherin green ribbons in her hair. “I solved your clue, you owe me at least a dance,” she tells him in a soft voice with a slight Welsh accent. He has no idea what she’s talking about, for a moment, and then he realizes that this must be the mysterious Glyndwr that Warrington told him about. He’s said it aloud, too, and she giggles, telling him, “my name’s Anwen. I’m rubbish at waltzing, just so you know.”

Harry hadn’t known Slytherins could giggle. Or admit that they were less than perfect at anything. He’s so shocked he takes her hands out of reflex, and they dance. She steps on his feet almost as much as he steps on hers, but it’s more fun than dancing with Cho was. In the space of one dance, he learns she’s a third year, that Warrington got someone to invite her as thanks for solving the clue, and that she’s descended from a Welsh king who vanished. It’s her dream to find him, one day, but if she can’t, she’ll settle for being an explorer.

The song ends, she thanks him and moves to leave, and something makes Harry tell her, “wait! I had a lot of fun dancing with you. Would you, maybe, mind another dance?”

Ron sees him with Anwen, and Hermione with Krum, and berates the both of them for “fraternising with the enemy.” Harry looks at him, at the way Hermione’s struggling to hold back tears, and tells him he’s way out of line with that comment, that they aren’t even our enemies, and even if they were that’s sort of the whole point of this Tournament, making new friends. A number of reporters overhear his impassioned words, but neither of them notice.

He walks off with an arm around Hermione’s shoulder. “He’s got no right to ruin your evening like that, Hermione,” he tells her. “So don’t you dare let him.” She sniffs once, wipes her eyes, holds her chin high and hugs him tightly before returning to the Ball for one final dance with Viktor. He would go back and look for Anwen, but she’d told him she was going to bed early, so there’s no point. Harry heads back to the Gryffindor tower instead, and catches up on missed sleep.

In the morning, the Daily Prophet runs an article about how Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, wants everyone to forgive each other and learn to live together. It’s meant condescendingly, but the idea is received with surprising warmth. People are beginning to tire of anger and hate.

V.  
Harry enters the maze before Viktor and Fleur, but after Cassius. 

It is undeniably Cassius now, and not Warrington, since the Yule Ball and the study groups he’s been invited to attend. He’d never realized how many Slytherins have Ravenclaw friends, or Hufflepuff cousins, all of them willing to help out for the sake of a Hogwarts victory, especially when they see that Harry, still the preferred Champion, prefers Warrington winning. This, Harry thinks, is what the Sorting Hat means in all its songs, when it sings about unity and cooperation. 

At first he is the lone Gryffindor in these meetings, but when he mentions wistfully that Hermione would love to read about some of these spells, he is told to bring her along, politics be damned, and of course he can’t bring Hermione without Ron wanting to come as well, only the twins won’t allow their youngest brother to attend on his own when there are so many Slytherins there, so of course they must come along, and somehow he’s roped what seems like a third of Gryffindor into helping him and Cassius prepare for the tournament.

Months of working together like this don’t pass without a hitch, of course, and there are insults and arguments and all the sorts of things you would expect when you bring together a bunch of teenagers with different views. 

But there is also constructive discussion, and debate, and a consensus that the Wizarding World would be a much better place if everyone just took a moment to learn about each other's’ culture. 

There are letters home, telling parents about brilliant friends from backgrounds you’d never expect it from, and enquiries to magical research institutions about spells and statistics but also wizarding genetics and the theory of blood purity, and why had no one ever thought to ask before?

When the answers come back, they are not always what everyone expects, and some are read in more stunned silence than others, but the end result is this: apologies are given and accepted, more letters are sent home, and minds begin to change.

At the same time as all this, research is done and spells are learned, and Harry and Cassius prepare for the third Task.

Harry enters the maze, and he is armed with dozens of spells Hermione wouldn’t have thought of on her own, much less known how to teach him, but also a bezoar (“you never know what kind of poisonous plants you’ll run into,” Neville tells him nervously, a sixth-year Hufflepuff backing him up with a list of poisonous plants that have appeared in Triwizard challenges, historically), and a knife (“sometimes, the oldest ways are best,” Anwen tells him in her hypnotic voice, and it sounds like it has a whisper of prophecy when she says it. She is odd, but her Ravenclaw cousin Luna is odder still, and Harry finds he quite likes them both.)

The older Hufflepuffs want to make him a portkey to the Shrieking Shack, so if his life’s in danger he has a way out, but it feels too much like cheating, and he doesn’t take it in the end. He promises to summon his broom if he needs a way out, and they are willing to accept that at least.

Warrington beats Harry to the cup, just barely, but he waits for Harry to catch up, telling him, “it’s all well and good to win the Tournament, but if there’s two winners then it’s really one for the history books.” They grip the handles of the Cup, and then their lives are in danger.

“Should have taken that portkey Cedric offered,” Harry whispers to Warrington, and they almost laugh, before Pettigrew appears.

“Ignore the spare,” Voldemort orders Peter, while Harry fumbles for his wand, dropping his knife along the way. “The father serves me, and so will the son.” Voldemort does not know yet that he has been betrayed, cannot understand that over months of cooperation friendships have grown and that is a bond stronger than any Mark on one’s arm. 

Cassius plays the obedient Death Eater’s son while Pettigrew binds Harry to a tombstone, but he picks up Harry’s fallen knife, and when Pettigrew moves to cut Harry, he drives the knife into his back. “Traitor!” the misshapen lump that had been Voldemort cries from the cauldron, but it is powerless to do anything, with no body, no wand and no servant, and Cassius frees Harry. 

Together, they grab the Cup and return to Hogwarts, the cauldron forgotten behind them. “My loyal servants at Hogwarts will destroy you!” Voldemort screams after them, but Harry and Cassius are already gone. 

They arrive slightly shaken but none the worse for wear, and are proclaimed the victors. Cassius’ parents, who had been there before the Task had started, are nowhere to be found. He swallows back tears, and demands to meet with the Minister at once anyways, providing him with a vial of his memories, to be viewed immediately in Dumbledore’s pensieve. 

Later that night, Barty Crouch Jr. leaves Hogwarts and finds the cauldron in Little Hangleton. He does not finish the ritual before the Aurors arrive, killing him and the snake. The homunculus in the cauldron is taken to the Department of Mysteries, along with the small stack of silvery-white Death Eaters’ masks neatly laid in front of the cauldron, a clear renunciation of allegiance.

VI.  
A state of emergency is declared - there is irrefutable proof that Voldemort lives, and the Ministry must act. Harry and Cassius are a shining example that cooperation between Light and Dark families is possible, and families that felt they had no choice ten years prior suddenly feel freer to decide where they stand. Many of them stand with Harry.

Dumbledore, seeing which way the wind is blowing, offers to train Harry in earnest, but when Harry manages to disarm him while he is lost in thought, he decides with some chagrin that perhaps the training that Harry’s impromptu study group could offer is better than anything he might do. Dumbledore, after all, has a large amount of things on his plate, not least of all a school to run.

The Horcruxes’ existence is discovered, and they are quietly hunted down:

Narcissa Malfoy, trustee for her imprisoned sister, accompanies Harry to her vault to retrieve Hufflepuff’s cup. Later that evening, she sees her other, estranged sister for the first time in years, and meets her niece. There is a rather long article about it in the society pages of the Daily Prophet.

Bill Weasley, expert in locating cursed items, coordinates the cleaning out of the Room of Requirement with his many volunteers. Fleur Delacour comes to help because she feels she owes Harry, but she stays because she thinks Bill is cute. Aside from the Horcrux, they find many other precious historical relics, and those that are sold provide enough money to run the school without tuition for the next twenty years. 

The Aurors had found Peter Pettigrew’s body in the cemetery on the night of the Triwizard Tournament, and suddenly it is obvious that Sirius Black has been imprisoned and hunted for a crime he didn’t commit. On the day he is exonerated, Sirius is told by a tearful Kreacher of “Master Regulus’ final request.” 

The Department of Mysteries finds the Gaunt ring and removes its curses, and then they give it to Harry, because according to the Ministry’s laws, it counts as spoils of war, and Harry is the one who vanquished Voldemort the first time, so it must be his. Hermione tells him that this is ridiculously flawed wizard logic, and he agrees, but they won’t take no for an answer, and Harry ends up with the ring.

Dumbledore is the one who tells him the truth - Harry himself is the final Horcrux. But the Department of Mysteries has a solution for this too, and Dumbledore holds him uncomfortably close, whispers, “oh my dear boy,” and offers him a lemon drop before Harry must go. He gives him his wand as well, telling him, “it is a powerful wand, and who knows what you might meet when you walk where you will?” There is an odd twinkle in his eye. It might even, Harry thinks, be a tear.

Harry is nervous as he walks through the Veil, and when he ends up in King’s Cross he thinks they have failed, that something has gone wrong. His parents are waiting there, though. They’re holding a somewhat ugly baby swaddled in black, but his mother tells him, “we’ll raise him better,” and Harry understands that this is the fragment of Voldemort that has grown inside his soul all this time.

They tell him they’re proud of all he has done, and they hug him and remind him they will love him no matter what he chooses to do, board a train or go back, but he thinks of his friends, and two cousins with impossibly grey eyes and more impossible dreams, and he tells his parents he loves them and goes to face his future.

This is how it ends:

Harry Potter is the first person to walk out of the Veil in the Department of Mysteries alive. His godfather weeps tears of happiness over him, and then they return to Number 12, Grimmauld Place. For the first time since his parents were killed, Harry has a happy summer to himself, to do what he wants and spend time with whomever he likes.

There is a feeling that the Wizarding World is mending, and new solutions to old problems are being found. The Ministry is being re-organized, as is Hogwarts’ curriculum. Binns is sacked, and a new, qualified teacher is brought in. Muggle Studies is made mandatory, but so is a course on Wizarding culture and heritage, so that Muggleborns don’t feel as lost in the Wizarding World

On September 1st, Harry boards the Hogwarts Express with Hermione and Ron, but also Neville, Ginny, Luna and Anwen. Sirius waves from the platform and tries not to cry, because it should have been James there and not him. He straightens his back and reminds himself that he is the one there for Harry now, and there’s nothing to do about it except his best.

At the feast, Dumbledore has a great many things to say, but they boil down to this: the curse on the Defence Against the Dark Arts position has been broken, the Ministry has realised that one can be Dark without being evil, and would they all please welcome back Professor Lupin, who has come to teach for the foreseeable future?

This year, and all the rest of Harry’s years at Hogwarts, feature only the sorts of adventures it’s reasonable to expect from a Hogwarts student. His scar does not hurt, and Voldemort does not attack the castle.

All is well.


End file.
